5 Most Effective Nonprofit Communication Channels
Crowdfunding Advisors, FundRazr Team
A nonprofit sector has been growing steadily over the last few decades due to its social component and humanitarian goals. Today, more than 10 million non-governmental organizations are operating all over the world trying to reach a variety of philanthropic goals.
However, it also means that the competition in this field is severe. Nonprofits that don’t develop a good nonprofit communication strategy are finding it increasingly difficult to attract donors and raise funds in the long run.
You should learn from their mistakes and make a plan that suits the goals of your organization. In this post, we will show you 5 most effective nonprofit communication channels with the audience.
Communication Goals in Nonprofit Sector
Nonprofit’s Communication goals depend on the nature of each organization individually, but there are a few generic objectives that apply to all groups. Here they are:
- Increase awareness: The basic goal of a nonprofit is to keep people informed about its work and present its values, mission, and projects. This is where you need to use a multichannel approach to ensure public awareness.
- Reach target audience: The second communication objective is to reach the target audience and inspire them to make donations. It’s a smaller group of individuals who are most likely to stand behind your campaigns.
- Build donor loyalty: The third step in your communication strategy is to strengthen the bonds with donors and convince them to come back to you. This is crucial as loyal supporters represent an anchor of every business – studies proved that 20% of customers generate 80% of sales.
Now that you’ve seen the most important communication goals in NGO sector, it is time to learn more about the channels through which you can address target donors. The 5 essential channels of communication in nonprofit are these.
- Website
Every nonprofit organization must have a well-designed website. For every 1,000 visitors your website receives, your organization will raise an average of $612 in donations. This is the first place people will look for while searching for your NGO, so it must contain general information about your plans and projects.
For every 1,000 visitors your website receives, your organization will raise an average of $612 in donations.
Besides that, you need to add clear calls to action and contact details to make sure visitors can reach you and take part in campaigns. It would be even better if you could provide users with live chat support and enable them to instantly ask you anything about your programs.
Of course, each organization should write a blog to get people acquainted with ongoing activities. Hands on Fundraising is one of the best and most popular fundraising blogs, so you can check it out to learn more about nonprofit blogging.
- Social media
Social networks currently have more than 3 billion active users. With almost half of the world’s population being engaged on social platforms every single day, it would be unwise to neglect this channel of nonprofit communication with your target audience.
A research showed that 21% of peer-to-peer fundraising funds are the result of a direct click-through on social media. At the same time, almost 30% of mobile donation traffic on Giving Tuesday came from Facebook, while Twitter comes as the close second.
The only problem is how to narrow down the choices and choose only relevant networks. We recommend you stick to the usual suspects:
- Facebook: With over 2 billion users, the largest social platform is mandatory both for big and small nonprofits.
- Twitter: This network is perfect if you are trying to reach active and well-off donors.
- Youtube: Video content is dominating the Internet, so you need to give supporters a chance to watch your organization in action.
- LinkedIn: This is the best option if you want highly skilled professionals and companies to support your campaigns.
Email is one of the oldest channels of nonprofit communication in the digital world, but it doesn’t mean it’s obsolete. On the contrary, email is still important, especially when you want to nurture relationships with loyal donors.
According to the study, a nonprofit organization raises $44 for every 1,000 fundraising emails delivered. Furthermore, it seems like the number of email donors is growing as the percentage of contributors motivated to give online by an email has increased to 40% in the last four years.
Email obviously helps you to easily customize conversations and send tailored messages to each receiver individually. Personalization is essential in this field. You should always address donors by their names and keep your style polite but informal.
That way, receivers will understand that you appreciate their contribution and they will be glad to keep supporting you. You don’t even have to write emails every day. It’s enough to send two or three messages a month to remind people of your actions, present news, and invite them to engage.
- Events
Face-to-face communication is very significant in nonprofit work. Back in 2016, a staggering 59% of donors surveyed said that they attended a fundraising event in the last 12 months. Organizing real-life events, you can meet donors and attract new supporters.
It’s your chance to show the human side of the business and prove that there are some real people behind your projects. At the same time, live events can improve your image in the local community, so don’t be afraid to take advantage of this communication channel.
- Public Relations
Speaking of events, you should know that they go hand in hand with public relations. You should seize the opportunity to promote your organization both in traditional and digital media. At the same time, there are numerous nonprofit publications that attract your target audience.
These are specialized niche-related outlets that you should approach in order to improve the reputation of your nonprofit group. With all those communication channels combined, reaching out to the target audience should go smoothly.
- Crowdfunding
The last communication channel on our list is relatively new but it attracts a lot of attention among contemporary nonprofits. Crowdfunding is the practice of obtaining needed funding by soliciting contributions from a large number of people especially from the online community.
With more than $5.5 billion of donations, charity crowdfunding is the second largest type of crowdfunding. Crowdfunding campaigns are a great tool to create engagement, emotional involvement, and to increase awareness of the cause. The best thing about it is that you can find highly relevant websites to launch your crowdfunding campaigns.
Conclusion
As a nonprofit organization, you must create a good communication strategy in order to grab the attention of potential donors. This document should be aligned with the overall objectives of your group and reflect its core values and mission.
In this post, we showed you 5 most effective nonprofit communication channels of communication with the audience. Don’t hesitate to use our tips and feel free to let us know in comments if you have questions about this topic – we will be glad to answer you!
BIO
Laura Buckler is a freelance writer and editor at Essays.ScholarAdvisor who uses her personal sense of motivation to help people recognize and realize their potential by showing them how to take a more simplistic view of life. Follow Laura on Twitter for her latest updates.
